Sandy Creighton
Bristol
Artist, juxtaposeur and contraptionist
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My work reflects the proposition that by paying attention it is possible to uncover interesting material in the immediate environment that might normally be overlooked. In the words of Richard Wentworth “in a globalized accessible world, the space outside one’s door might be the most exotic of all”. Faced with an abundance of subject matter, the problem becomes one of discrimination and selection. The challenge is to develop strategies that sidestep intention and deliver the unexpected. Chance procedures, constraints and arbitrary rules can be useful tools to enable this. I feel a powerful impulse to construct patterns and narratives in the face of the chaotic nature of existence, this tendency provides the tension in the way I work with the material I collect.
I am interested in two kinds of relationship between the microcosm of my local area and the macrocosm of the wider world. One is in the notion that a small part can be seen to represent the whole and the other is in the tracing of networks of connections that link everything together. These relationships invest my work with significance beyond mere documentation
I like to invite a high level of participation in my work, as in the sound piece, Rubbish Music, in which viewers are invited to manipulate materials in order to generate sounds. I believe that when viewers physically interact with a piece, they give it their full attention and enter into a more profound dialogue with it.
In the video installation Front and Back, by using a remote camera operated by an automatic mechanism I intentionally relinquished a degree of control over the images I used. Such strategies prevent me from finding only what I am looking for, they uncover the unexpected in the everyday.
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